IoT Clothing: 10 Billion Products To Be “Born” Digital

Packaging materials company Avery Dennison Retail Branding and Information Solutions and IoT company Evrythng have teamed up, announcing “the world’s largest Internet of Things deal to ‘switch on’ the apparel and footwear industry”.

Under the partnership, Avery Dennison and Evrythng are working together to bring unique digital identities to a minimum of 10 billion apparel and footwear products over the next three years.

Encompassing some of the world’s largest fashion and performance brands, this will enable products to be created with digital identities and data profiles in the cloud, the companies explained, in what they stated they believe “is the largest number of IoT-connected products in a single deal ever”.

“With the smartphone becoming the remote control for the digital world, consumers expect to interact with brands through digital means,” the companies state.

“The introduction of the Janela Smart Products Platform, powered by Evrythng, enables the apparel and footwear industry to take this to a whole new level.

“By using Evrythng’s digital identity and data management capabilities, Avery Dennison can now enable its customers’ products to be digitised at the point of manufacturing.”

The companies state the partnership “represents the first truly industrial-scale digital enablement of everyday products”, providing apparel, accessories and footwear brands the capacity to deliver digital applications with their physical products.

“Once connected to the web in this way, products can interact with smartphones to trigger applications and services that connect more intelligently with consumers,” the companies state.

“Brands will become more interactive, providing personalised, real-time mobile experiences and content for each individual consumer and each item of clothing.

“Products will also become smarter, using real-time data analytics to tackle problems like product authentication for better brand protection and increased efficiency in supply chains.”